How to write a story
by dragonsire13
Summary: Christmas time and I was mad as hell because I just wanted to read some good stories... and only found Mary Sues, non plots, non characters, non ideas... I got sooo annoyed that I decided to write down what I like about stories and what I want to see more often. Don't like don't read ;)
1. Chapter 1 Intro and Content

Disclaimer: Ideas, characters and plots from recognizable stories belong to the rightful owners... not me.

Note: This is written for fun and amusement.

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I'm sorry for all people who are waiting for me to update my story but this is something I had to write first. Please accept my humble apology (I already have 5000 words of the next chapter so it won't take that loooong anymore...hopefully/cough)

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About this:

I love to read fanfictions... I have even read them years before I decided to start writing myself and some of them are amazing stories. There are such good stories out there with amazing developed characters, funny/inventive/unforeseen plots and story twists. I've read stories which made me jealous because I just knew that I will probably never be soooo good in story telling (sigh). So everyone who writes stories like that ;) you have my eternal gratitude for gifting me with nice hours full of fun, amazement, joy and emotional turmoil. Cheers to you guys you are awesome.

There also are "the others"... those things which pretend to be a story but aren't. They are annoying and they are many (double sigh). I'm not as hard with judging stories as other hard core fans are, because I can forgive weak parts if there are some good things in it. For example if there is an unique character or an angle to the story which hasn't been there before than I don't care if there are some mistakes (as long its still recognizable as language) or flaws in the plot. Some stories have good ideas and even a nice plot but maybe are less developed with showing things I would love to see (more detailed scenes or whatever), such things are sad but hey those authors are trying... so they get credit for it.

For me the absolute No Go's in fanfictions are: clichés, Mary Sues (except in parodies-but only in good parodies), absence of plot, absence of characters (not the puppets which look pretty but character in the sense of "character"), lazy story telling, violating the source material for no good reason and without explaining as to why, incoherence of characters, time flow, pacing or basic rules of the specific world. But lets look at these things in closer detail. Shall we?

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**How to write a story**

At Christmas 2013, I needed some time to relax and while I had a house full of guests I also wanted to spend some time with simply reading some well written stories. You know, just sitting in your chair, a cup of steaming tea in your hand, relaxing? Sadly it never happened. You may ask: why? Was it the Christmas turmoil, the neighbour's kids or tons of food which had prevented me from enjoying my time? No actually it wasn't. Actually it were all those crappy stories which I stumbled across which ruined my fun.

Seriously with clicking at over 300 stories I only found two new ones which I really enjoyed. After being annoyed for days I finally decided to put into words what I love and appreciate about stories, so no one would be able to say that I didn't tell them (lol).

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**a) the content**

For me a story is only a story if it has a plot. You may think this would be the most basic issue. Why would someone even need to mention that? Let me ask you a question:

Have you ever heard of a book series called "Twilight"?

If not: Go and say your thanks to any power you believe in because what ever it is, it has succeeded in protecting you from the worst kind of Mary Sue typed story ever put on paper... Seriously not even the most cheesy fanfiction, with no characters, no plot and no sense can come close to that sh...

If: My condolences. You will know then that even if a story doesn't make sense, has not really characters (only passive puppets which look nice and sparkle), is lazily written and has absolutely no plot at all, is able to make ridiculous amounts of money and will be put out as film (life sucks). Its the only redeemable thing I can say about some of the fanfictions on this website: If you think about the fact that Twilight was most likely the literature which inspired them to write... how can anyone be surprised with the outcome?

Back to the point. A story needs a plot. What is a plot? It means the content of a story and can be literally or figuratively be compared to a journey. You have characters and those have to go on a journey (physically: going somewhere, emotionally: develop more character, psychically: gaining life experience). Let me give you a basic example.

3 people survive an airplane crash and strand on a snowy mountain, in order to survive they need to get down from the mountain and reach a) a place where their mobile phones work or b) a small town. There will be obstacles: someone is caught inside the plane wrack (how will they get this person out?), they don't see a thing because of the storm, they have to find food, warmth, shelter whatever.

One part about the plot is the big: WHAT HAPPENS?

If you have written a story and you can't answer this question, then be so kind and do yourself and the world a favour: take the story and throw it into the bin. So some of the basic steps concerning a plot is to have people which have a problem: you have 3people who will die if they don't get down from the mountain. Then they try to solve the problem: they try to call for help and get down from the mountain. You also have obstacles which makes their solving the problem task more difficult (bad weather, lack of food, injured person, trapped person, what ever) those obstacles are also important for something else: Character development. The emotional journey of those characters is how they will react to the problem and the obstacles, will they grow with their task? or will they break? But lets speak about characters separately because with those I have the biggest issues in fanfictions.

With the plot you then have a climax or tight spot in the story (classic), the odds against the characters reach the highest point. You have long building up to that point, things getting worse, darker, whatever leading to the one big moment and then there are different possibilities how to solve it (a big battle, a catastrophe, a twist,...), after that you can get your happy end (or not) and some more about the characters (like how happy they are to get down from the mountain, what they will do now with their new life, how they have changed from their experience etc.)

Somewhere I have heard the best summary of what story telling is: You meet a character, the character has to face a problem, you join the character on his journey to solve the problem and learn more about the character during this journey as he/she/it has to solve obstacles and grow in character and experience through it!

I think that is a very nice and pointy summary.

So if you are going to write your next story ask yourself: what is it about? What will happen? If you have answered this for yourself then pat yourself on the shoulder and say ok first step won. You will ultimately end up in front of the next question though and that's: Why does it happen? Does this entire crap make any sense at all? I think this is a very important question which gets forgotten most of the time even by professional authors and producers so don't feel to bad if you have never thought about it before. This question is important though because you need your audience/reader to believe you, people don't care for stories which doesn't make sense (ok I know Twilight... ah just shove it somewhere). Normally people want to be able to relate to the story so you need to tell them why people try to get down from the mountain, why the audience should care about them, why is this important enough to spend money and time to watch or read this story? In the former example its already well chosen: a crash with an airplane is awful, it is related to our every day life because it can happen to anyone (at least if you use an airplane) Its an realistic scenario, that's why people relate to it. They tell themselves: hey this could be me.

The motivation of the characters in this example is to survive and that is a very strong motivation. They were thrown into a situation (which wasn't in their power to prevent-it was an accident) and the audience feels with them and if you have good characters in the story they even hope for them to survive. If the scenario would be a bit different then the stakes wouldn't be that clear. If instead of a plane crash you take a group of people wanting to reach the top of the mountain for the reason of sport or a life dream than you have to face problems. While people understand the motivation of realizing the dream of your life (reaching the top of the mountain) they don't think its ok if you sacrifice human life on the way up there (losing group members to the storm). Its simply not a good enough motivation. Even if people go up there because they have to save 3people stranded on the mountain... its honourable but if people of the rescue team die while trying to save others than the audience will start to question the scenario... they will ask why are there even 3people up in the mountain? If they are survivors of a plane crash then you will think its still ok because they didn't chose that situation... but if those 3 people are up there to prove themselves (with reaching the mountain top) then you will start to think its their own fault just let them die up there.

So you see guys this can lead to some serious issues about how credible is a story, how believable is it? That's why the question WHY is worth to think through. I know that the meta answer to why this film/story would happen in that way is easy: because the producers want to make an adventure/survival movie and you need to get the protagonist into a situation where he/she/it has to fight to survive. So why on a mountain? Because in our world its hard to find places where people are so exposed to natures claws that it still poses a threat. Seriously only mountains, desserts, depths of sea and void are the last places where one can get seriously lost, where you can't call for help, where rescue teams have problems to reach you and where such a movie or story can take place. But as author or producer you can't tell the people: Hey our characters go there because we want to make a survival movie/story. You need to tell them a legitimate reason as to why someone would end up in such a situation, why they would do what they are going to do and so on...

Summary: For a plot you need to think about what is going to happen and why does it happen. Spell it out for yourself and try to keep everything reasonable within the world the particular story takes place.

It could help to think yourself into the particular situation and ask: how would I act in this situation, what kind of tools or skills do I have, what are my most important needs at this moment in the story, where exactly am I, are there any people or tools in my environment which could help me... how do I feel in this situation.

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That are my first thoughts to the topic of plot... if you feel that there are points missing or something else just use the review option please. There should be following parts to this one: b) characters, c) source material/fanfiction, d) be different/authentic


	2. Chapter 2 Characters

Disclaimer: Still not mine... it won't change...

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Hello again :) welcome back to my rant of enormous proportions. Ty for all the feedback and the support. Also thanks for the critique :) I will keep flogging my dead horse though, sorry guys. I also try to include some of those points into my own stories but as I mentioned in the chapter before, I appreciate stories which try even if they have some weak spots so they don't have to be perfect. I'm already happy if they have some creativity in one of these points... perfect - forget it not even professional writers can pull that off.

Today I will look at characters or the lack of them in most fanfictions (cry). So fasten your seatbelts we are starting.

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**b) Character development**

Ok let me get one thing out of the way: Before you can think of "development" concerning characters you need to have characters which can develop themselves first.

A description of size, skin colour, wild sparkling colour changing eyes, hair, exploring of boob size and cloth trends has NOTHING to do with character... its dressing a Barbie... sorry if you didn't know that. I didn't want to destroy your illusions (or maybe I want). While I love good descriptions especially in fantasy stories where you enter places which are hopefully very different from everything you encounter in the real world, its not everything! A character is more than it's looks, its about personality. So my biggest clue if I try to figure out if I'm reading about a puppet or a character is the existence or non existence of a personality.

If you create a character than you need to think about that you are sending this creation on a journey and while it seems to be popular to have passive puppets which never act for themselves but always get dragged along, I highly recommend to put some thought into creating a character rather than a puppet. Believe me or not it will make writing a story that much easier. As author you have a very serious problem if you don't have characters but only puppets because a puppet can't have a plot, its a thing, you can drag it along but it won't help you driving a plot forward contrary even you will always think that there is something ugly clinging to your shoe which you can't get rid off.

A puppet can be a Mary Sue (don't have to be but is an easy example), they are described about their physically properties and when and where they could be put into what kind of dress but that's it. There isn't anything else you can do with it. Even if people want to give them a story or something to do, its impossible, because a puppet is a thing (a plain, downright boring thing) in contrary to a character it can't take action. It can only be passive because seriously there is nothing to a puppet that would make them act. To take action a character needs to have a motivation and in order to have a motivation you need to have a personality. Without a personality the "thing" will only be dragged along (passive) instead of taking action (active). It shows everywhere in scenes, dialogues, even in battles. One of the most glaring trademarks of puppets is that they have to be carried around, protected and spoken too. Seriously how do I illustrate it the best? If all the conversations in a story are mainly about the angsty concerns of a mary sue or her love interest than its a puppet. Puppets never ask questions about other characters, never show interest in backstories or motivations of others, they never ask questions about how others feel or what their motivations and plans are. They are mostly spoken too, means they react to their love interest asking questions or similar things. But what do you expect? Its a puppet.

What exactly is a Mary Sue? I got some reviews which made clear that there are very different definitions about this topic and therefore I will add mine here. Hopefully this will reduce some of the confusion. A Mary Sue isn't a character, it's a puppet. That's why I used it as illustration to point out what the differences between puppets and characters are. Their trademarks are a lack of personality as they only exist through their looks. They have no other motivation (if you can even talk about motivation) than to find what they believe is love... but it is only some kind of infatuation mostly in looks of a male. They don't really care for what is happening in the story or in the world they are in. They also don't take notice of other characters as characters... most of the time their point of view just reduces characters (even those from the books) to mindless puppets. In extreme versions they come with changing hair colours, eye colours, Barbie sized figure, some ridiculous pets like unicorns, horses, shape shifting animals or the like. Or they are vampires, werewolves or other things. What ever it is they most likely don't fit into the world, aren't explained or in anyway thought of. They stand out like the colour pink.

A strong character has a personality and they are far away from being perfect. They have strengths and flaws and good characters are fairly balanced between those two things. They can be headstrong, corrupt, greedy, scared, hurt, enthusiastic or whatever. Likeable characters have a big issue... and learn to live with it. You may ask why does heroes need to have flaws? Easy because otherwise you don't have any motivation to do something. If you are almighty and all knowledgeable you would never go anywhere or do anything. You would just be (the centre of the universe)... completely useless. Also if you have almighty people on a journey you don't need others. So this person would just occupy any space and take away opportunities for others to do something and develop. I'm not saying that it can't be fun to have a powerful character but then you have also let this character act this way.

Powerful kickass characters are awesome. I love them especially if they are in the right place in a story but I hate them even more if they are not in the right spot. Back to the scenario where the protagonist (hero/main character of the story) gets powers to be totally kickass. I HATE IT if they are staying in the background and let others make decisions ITS AWFUL. If the character is a kickass powerful whatever then the hell go to the front and let him/her/it kill off anything in reach. Such characters are meant to be plotters, to lead the story, to make decisions and to do something. Those are characters which run forward and slay everything in their path and you can only hope that everything innocent was pulled aside in time. I know that its a bit over the top but I try to illustrate it better because this stormy behaviour of such characters can also be their weakness and their motivation. If you have a character going off like a rocket than you already have your plot, that's what makes a good character. A good character never needs to be dragged along somewhere, you never need to run with your head against a wall because you don't know how the story is continuing. If you have a character you have a story.

In the example of lets call her "the rocket woman" you always know how she would act in situations. She will always run to the front and slay off anything that is there. Yet this course of action isn't always the best, so she will end up in trouble and maybe even need another character at her side which will try to calm her down, to reason with her and then you have a conflict because how would these characters be able to accept each other? Back to my example from the last chapter, if you have 3people on a mountain with one of them the rocket woman then she will argue to get straight down from the mountain. This could lead to good conflict if the sane way of acting would be to go and seek shelter from the storm and try to get down after the weather has calmed... let's have a short look into character development, just because it fits so nicely here: If rocket woman learns to overcome her impatience then she could become a good leader of a group. This could be the inner journey of a character ;). If she fails she could become the antagonist as she is endangering the survival of the group. Just an idea.

Next point would be to make the character believable...

Why is the rocket woman the way she is? Maybe she could have a strong motivation to get down from the mountain. She could be in need of delivering a heart or other organ in order to reach a hospital where people are waiting for it... Wouldn't that be a strong motivation for someone to get down from the mountain? Other things could be that she wants to return to her family or that she needs to seal an important contract for her company. Endless possibilities there... Ok not endless but close.

For me the biggest difference between a character and a puppet is in how they affect a story when you let them free. If you have a good character and you put it into a world then you better have your writing tools on hand because a character will run of, make decisions, influence other character, influence the plot and change everything. Its basically like surfing on a tsunami wave, the sweat drops will be on your forehead because you will struggle to keep up with typing/writing to just keep track on what your character is doing. It will be worse the more characters you have but hell its the most fun to read. On the other hand if you only have a puppet and put it into a world then nothing will happen. It will land somewhere and lie on the floor until you have some characters dropping by and picking them up.

How to create a good character? Its a good and difficult question, I can only tell you what I love to read about. I love if the characters come with a job. It isn't necessary but it's a nice way to give them some sort of identity. For example doctors, those are people which are used to make decisions and carry responsibility. They are mostly trained to deal with accidents or death of people. Such a character is not believable if they faint while seeing blood (just saying). Also most of the time those people are used to lead a situation, they are used that other people come to them and ask them for their opinion. They have to decide which medicine and pills are needed or if you need a special treatment. They also have a minimum age. There aren't doctors at the age of twenty... not even prodigies.

Age is a very difficult decision too. It says a lot about the character and believe me but if you create an all knowing 14year old character...unrealistic. It's also unrealistic to have someone with 30 years who is unable to make decisions because if you are 30 you have already seen and handled a lot of crap in your life. Gender, race (also fictional ones) and class are also big issues if you create a character, as well as the culture he/she/it comes from. If you take stories like lord of the rings you will notice that every race there has different values, struggles and strengths. You could take from every race one character and put them into the same scene the outcome would be very different every time. It just shows how amazing Tolkien was in creating Characters. They just have so much substance to themselves that you can simply use them to create other stories.

The decision about making a character female or male could fill thousands of sites and I'm not going to dive into that too much. Just... Why? Why can't a female character say ok yes I want to go out into the world and have an adventure, slay a dragon and win a battle... why do they always just want romance? I don't have anything against romance but it shouldn't be in the way of the plot and it shouldn't be like Twilight (sorry guys I know that was a low blow).

Every character has a past and you don't need to write about it in every detail but you should know about it. Because where a character comes from, what he/she/it has already lived through, what kind of friends, hobbies, jobs and what it has experienced in life defines what kind of traits it has. How much life experience has the character and what motivates it are very important things which should be clear at least to the author before the story starts.

If the character is defined with its history and motivation then you can move on to character development. I love stories where characters learn something, where they change (for better or worse), where they get redeemed and so on. If you sent a character on a journey it should learn something, it should change its highly unlikely that you wouldn't learn anything in real life if you move to a new house, or switch work, or start a family or whatever. Even if you meet your husband's/wife's parents for the first time you will learn something. Not all things you learn are good or desirable but they will change you and so characters have to change too. It doesn't feel real if after 300 pages of turmoil the characters haven't changed even a bit. Let them learn and with that I mean let them take responsibility. You grow up and learn to care for yourself and after that you should learn to care for others... it doesn't matter if you have your children to care for or clients at work or just good friend which sometimes need someone to lend a shoulder to cry upon. Growing up has to do with taking on responsibility. Characters should grow too at least as a "person". They should learn about their own faults and how to deal with those sides then they can offer others support or at least an open ear with their struggles. For me a story is awesome when you find characters that show interest for the world they live in and the people.

The antagonist and villains

A good story needs good opponents. If you have personified villain then you need to put as much thought into it as you put into your hero. Every hero is only as good as their enemy. There are stories where you don't have opponents which have a character. You can have a catastrophe (storm, flood, etc.) or you can get lost in ugly places (sea, dessert,...). Nature is a cruel opponent in many stories and it's that cruel because it has no personality. You don't get into that storm because weather has an vendetta against you (except in fictional stories) but because you simply have been there (wrong spot wrong time). In those scenarios you can have animals which appear and endanger your characters even more. For example if you are on a boat in the sea and there is a storm then you could have sharks surrounding you to make the situation even more dire. Again its not "on purpose" as the sea/nature doesn't have a will on it's own, its just because the characters are there at the wrong time. (of course its the intention of the author to make the situation more thrilling but the sea normally has no evil intention)

If you have a character as villain... then you should try to make him/her/it believable.

"Why are you attacking us?"

"Because I want to rule the world."

(ugh)

Its soo over used that you just think: Ok guy/evil person just get into the line with those other idiots. Just take a number.

As reader you always want to know why, why are those characters doing what they do.

"Because they are evil."

(sigh)

Not really but it happens very often that antagonists are not really well thought of. They should have a motivation and gain something by following their plans. Also, if your enemy is a fool then how much of a fool are your heroes if they still struggle to win against an idiot? The point is that if you have a villain that is believable then your entire story will become much more believable as well as your other characters.

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So far I'm done with this :)

again I offer that you can just add your thoughts if you think there are points missing.


	3. Chapter 3 source material

Disclaimer: Nope... not mine... still not mine.

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Hello my dears :) before heading to the next topic I want to say special thanks to my reviewers. Also I hope that annafan doesn't mind if I post the review here, because it contains some valid points which are totally worth having in the text.

_**annafan:** OK, character development... let me get on one of my hobby horses._

_People often make the mistake of conflating two issues - how the author develops the picture we as readers have of the characters, versus the question of whether the character themself develops in some sense of psychological growth during the course of the story. You can write a damn good story by focussing on the first without bothering with the second at all! And in fact, too much of an emphasis on the late 20th/early 21st century fetishisation of psychological growth can actually mess things up for you._

_It's this obsession which drove Peter Jackson to destroy Faramir's character in the film version: apparently he felt the book version was too good (and according to PJ, a narrative can only have one heroic goody, and Aragorn already had that spot), and too static - his character didn't go through some sort of transformation. So he turned Faramir into "Boromir-without-the-balls" in order to have him have some sort of epiphany and half-arsed redemption. And I ask you: which is the better character? Book Faramir, who is developed in the first sense - in terms of psychological realism, he's the most rounded character in the book - but his personality is fairly fixed (as you'd expect of a guy in his late 30s)? Or Movie Faramir, who develops in the second sense (but is, in my opinion, somewhat underdeveloped in the first sense)?_

_Second - which comes first, character or plot? This depends on how you tick as an author (and in part on genre). Pullman - going off what he says of his own writing process - would be a great example of an author who starts from a quirk of character "Lyra and her demon..." and riffs from there, characters developing and plot evolving from character (albeit with some sort of over-arching plot idea, in this case producing a secular response to Paradise Lost/Narnia). I'm a kind of plot-first, character-second writer. I'm not sure one is better than the other, necessarily, so long as the characters have some depth to them and aren't just place holders for parts of the plot (and I entirely agree that once they're up and running they develop of life of their own - in fact sometimes, they wander into the plot fully formed, as I believe Tolkien said Faramir did)._

_As for genre, I think thrillers and comedies have to be plot-driven because if things don't unfold at the right pace and in the right order, they don't work. There's a great quote from Christopher Booker's book, The seven basic plot types, where he says writing comedy is like making a jigsaw - he said something along the lines of it's not until the final piece slips into place that the reader realises what you've been doing all along._

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Ok one point I love in there is the explanation that the author has the option to play around with the tool of when, how and how much he/she reveals about a character. Its like using flashlight to illuminate some parts while others remain in the unknown. Thanks for mentioning this because it is a valuable instrument which can be creatively used... you think it's a nice person... until you find out it was the murderer all along (evil laughter). This tool isn't bound to characters alone though. Every author has to decide how they are going to string scenes together. What to show first? The hero, the problem, the enemy or a causal scene? Basically the author is in the position to have more knowledge about the story than the readers (usually) and has the freedom to play around with how much of this secret knowledge will be revealed and in which order...

My focus in the last chapter was to show the difference between a character and a puppet and my point was that only a character can have a development. So in my opinion both (a changing character as well as one that will be illuminated bit for bit) are legitimate and nice tools for authors to play around with characters and should be explored both. I will only say that even for the flashlight method you still need a character rather than a puppet. In order to make traits visible you need to have some substance... flesh on your character. What is there to reveal about a Mary Sue? Yes, nothing.

To the part of which comes first character or plot? I can only agree that both ways are good but if you get stuck with your plot then it could be helpful to focus back on your characters and try to figure out what they would do. If you have characters... and not puppets (lol). Last point would be your example for Boromir. Sadly I can't give a straight answer to your question there because I think its terrible hard to compare two different media to each other. Books work different as movies. In the movie version I like how they show different facettes of Boromir like the friendship to the two Hobbits, the scene in Lothlorien as he speaks about his worry for his father and his people, also the scene between the brothers in Osgiliath. There you see a much more "human" side of Boromir and I like those because they give the character substance. In the books I never really noticed Boromir, he just was there. I know that he fought with Aragorn against the watcher at the gates of Moria but basically that's it. You don't see much of him... I believe that its a difference between book and movie. In a book you make visible what you need at the moment (flashlight)... if you say on page 30 that they have a pink coat then they have it... no one minds if you only mention it again on page 400 and just say that it had been there the entire time. That's believable in a book but in a movie you need to see it every time the character is on the screen. With the fellowship in the book they were most of the time just there because it was mentioned that they all were on this journey. Sometimes you focus on one character but most of the time the fellowship is only mentioned as group so you don't really see that much of the characters. In the movie they are always there.

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Ok in this chapter I want to think about the source material. This is a quite unique topic that you find with fanfictions or adaptations.

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**c) The source material**

Writing fanfictions means to use already published stories (books, movies, games,...) and to create something new with it. People love characters, world parts, plot parts or just ideas from those stories and want to have fun while writing something new. So far so good.

One thing straight at the Beginning: If you use a world from a well known source please stay true to the rules there. If in the world only darkness exists and you bring in light then you change something basic of the concept from the original. Why would you do that? If you want to use a world with light then just use one of the million other worlds out there for your fanfiction. I will give you a example from Lord of the rings: One of the basic important things in those books is that Frodo has to carry the ring. Humans, elves, dwarves and even wizards can't carry it because it would corrupt them and through the evil power of Sauron they would then be changed into something evil that could destroy the world. Frodo is trusted with the ring because of different reasons: a) he is a Hobbit. Hobbits don't desire riches, power or knowledge at least far less than other races. That means he can withstand it much more easily than others. b) he has no power. Gandalf would become something like the Balrog if he gets corrupted, Frodo would just be like Gollum, so the world wouldn't be destroyed because of it. c) he didn't want to carry the ring. He only takes it out of fear and compassion for the others. He sees what the ring is doing to them and sacrifice himself in order to protect the others and the shire.

This is one of the basic elements in Lord of the Rings. It forms the tone in the story and shows much of the values behind it. So please don't change it (personal opinion). If you want to change something so basic like that then you better start explaining. You need to explain why the character taking the ring instead of Frodo surpasses the Hobbit in all the mentioned points (above) and why the characters in middle earth would trust this new person. And for hells sake I want good reasons.

The same counts for using characters from a story. I hate it if people just take the looks of a character and make it into a puppet to force it into marriage with a Mary Sue. That is torture and you should be imprisoned for it. It's also torture to read. Let me take poor Legolas. He is a prince, means his father is king of mirkwood and one day he will have to take over the rule (or maybe not if his father doesn't die in the struggles and wars). The thing is that this character is an amazing hunter, politican, responsible ruler in make, old being with tons of life experience. There isn't much mentioned in the books about him except for his friendship with Gimli and how they left middle earth together but knowing all of this... Could you seriously think that such a being would fall for a Mary Sue? Answer: Not even when seriously drugged, unconscious, bound and thrown into a cage. He would also never simply run off with any girl... because he would never abandon his responsibilities like that. He also wouldn't fall for anyone just because of looks... it would be simply too boring. I mean hell think about living for 2000 years with a puppet... awful, terrible. Very much the same counts for Aragorn. One of the most basic traits of this character is that he is in a deep love with Arwen, that is his most important reason to try to reclaim his throne because Elrond would only allow him to be with his daughter if he was king. He is not going to abandon Arwen. So my dear authors if you live in the illusion that you have to change those characters then EXPLAIN. You better have well thought of original ideas as to why things are different then in the original stories.

Some of the funnier things I had encountered at some cross over fractions is that wizards seem to end up in middle earth without powers. WHY? I always laugh myself silly at those stories because most of the time there is no explanation, no sense and no story to them. If you have a wizard (harry potter crossover...its the largest crossover category) ending up in middle earth why doesn't he have powers? Or ends up loosing the wand? What kind of sense does that make? I mean why using a magical gifted character if its ending up to be like a non magical person. You could have simply used any character then. Its not like the authors of those stories make it an issue which has the character to struggle through... no... most of the time its like: Ok my powers are gone, fine, what's next?

If there would be a struggle of reclaiming those powers then ok but that's not what you have. Its so stupid and violating one of the basic ideas of Rowlings source material. The basic idea of the wizarding world was that the magical gifted people are depended on magic. They wouldn't survive without it. Harry? maybe because he was still not used to be a wizard in the first place. Characters like Hermione Granger which had embraced their magic and dived into this world wouldn't just live without their powers. Especially Hermione would jump to research and find a way to get her powers back. In my opinion that Idea is stupid in the first place because if you want a normal character in middle earth without super powers then take one but not a wizard. Basically I'm saying that if you use a magical gifted character then let it have its magic or if you take the magic away then make it a big issue/struggle in the story... give us a realistic explanation.

I'm not going to say that everything has to stay close to the original, no, I want to see new ideas and things that are creative and unique but they have to be well thought of. Things need to make sense, they need to be constant. If you invent a power then make sure its used accordingly. I know that this is much more difficult than its sounds. I still love how the people cry out when the eagles fly to the erupting volcano to save Sam and Frodo. Its not explained in the movies why they just didn't fly Frodo over to Mordor to drop the ring into the fire. In the books you understand about the mythology and can figure out why but its still one of the weak spots and just shows how difficult it is to have so many different plot parts.

What is important to me with the source material is that it should still be recognizable. I want to still have the feeling to be in middle earth and seriously I don't feel that when I'm encountering "riverdale" instead of "Rivendell" which lays next doorstep to Thranduil's house! Hell that are different realms far far far away from each other. They are parted through giant mountains like the alps and you can't just go over there to ask for sugar if yours ran out. It makes me mad if authors send characters to different elven realms like they are strolling to the next store. That's a loooong dangerous journey. Haldir in the books even mentioned to Legolas (during greeting him) that they hadn't seen their kin in the north for a loooooooooooooong time (elvish counting - means in our understanding probably thousands of years of separation). For Tolkien it was important that even if all were elves that they were still different clans. He even invented different elven languages because of their long times of separation.

In summary I would say its important to know the rules of a world and if you feel the need of changing them (which is ok) then explain that you do it and why. Another thing would be that if you bring in a topic or theme to your story then keep it. There is the saying that every gun you bring onto stage has to fire at least once. Means if you bring in a new invention, power, theme or rule to a world or change it from the original then it has to pay off. Don't bring in things that have no use. If you give your character specific traits like a love for books and he has worked in a bookstore his whole life then this won't change suddenly. It would still be very likely that if this character encounters a place where one can find knowledge even after 300 pages that he would go and look for it. Or at least feel the urge to go and look for it and mourn if he doesn't have the opportunity. Those are small things but they make a character more realistic. I really get frustrated with stories if they lack coherence, if they start with something then drop it for something else. Just because you find love doesn't mean that the rest of the world isn't important anymore. There are stories with a great set up, creative intro and a nice twist but then after chapters of building up to go somewhere they just turn right and leave the path to never go back to what the story was about.

Another confusing thing about adding characters is the genre of the tenth walker stories. They are seldom good. Really. Most of the time someone gets added to the fellowship and nothing happens. Everything plays out exactly the way it has in the books... never heard of anything more unrealistic. Most of the time you have those original characters stealing lines from other characters or some of the hero stuff they do... like instead of Gandalf the Oc conveniently beats the Balrog. Most of the time those stories are just boring and unrealistic because if you add a person to the group everything should change. You can't just say that they don't have an impact on what decisions are made. For the better or the worse. Ok I admit that if you have a puppet and not a character then its clear why the "thing" just gets dragged along. Because I hate these clichés so much, I love to criticise them (lol). So I will spent the last part with the absolute NO Go's while setting up a tenth walker.

a) Dropping just into the secret council. That is sooo stupid that I always start laughing (it has a high humour factor and is very well placed in parodies) I have a hard time to even talk about it (without laughing). Why? Just why would anyone drop into the middle of Imladris at the exact place of a secret meeting? The elves have a magical/elven style protection around the valley so no one is able to find it. The dark powers like Saruman and Sauron don't know that the council is held. Ok Sauron may expect something but he isn't sure or all his armies would try to raid the valley. The only powers which could manage that would be the Valar and they have no reason to do so because they already let any person needed at that council there. (like Boromir through his dream) If they would need anyone else there they would find a better way (not so invasive) than just dropping them there... its also against the policy of the Valar to intervene in such a offensive way. Look they even sent their ambassadors cloaked in a kind of humanoid body so that they wouldn't stand out that much (wizards).

If you want them to drop in middle earth please let it be somewhere else I know it takes some brain to then get them hooked up with the story but it would be much more realistic. I'm not sure what is more difficult to find a good explanation as to why would someone join that stranded somewhere or to find a realistic explanation for someone to drop into the council...

b) join the council for no good reason. This is a variation to the first point. If you want your oc to join the council then please give your readers a reason as to why this character should be there. In better stories you have at least the "fate" thing there as explanation (I don't like it but at least its an explanation). Authors say that it had been fate that the character was there at that time, like it was fate how the others had been "summoned". Personally I prefer explanations like the character brings in some kind of knowledge which is helpful (it could be about movements of the enemy- if the character is a ranger/scout or something, about the making/design of the ring and its powers-if its an elf maybe). The most natural explanation would be if you use a character from the world that would or could be at the council. Someone like an ambassador from Gondor or a relative to some of the present (like Gimli's brother, uncle or something like that). One of the best stories I have read in that category was as Faramir took the place of Boromir and joined the council. It wasn't really a tenth walker story because it still had nine members (Faramir instead of Boromir) but the author had a unique way of telling how the entire journey changed because of that. Still one of my most favourite stories out there.

c) Ten or more members of the Fellowship. There was a reason why Elrond agreed to send nine people to Mordor. I don't really know if it was his foresight or something else but he had the feeling that there should be nine in opposition to the nine Nazgul. The number had a meaning. If you add more people to the fellowship then please explain why you change it or at least mention it somehow. Elrond could at least have a bad feeling about it.

d) getting appointed for the fellowship despite having no knowledge, no power and no skill which would be useful. Ok some may argue that there are the Hobbits... but they have at least a thick bond of friendship and Bilbo had proven that Hobbits could do unexpected things if needed. That was most likely the reason why Elrond could be swayed by Gandalf to let them come. In the beginning Elrond had no intention to let them go. So WHY would he ever allow a (example) untrained, unarmed, useless puppet thing to join the fellowship. Exactly he wouldn't.

e) need to be saved and protected. I agree that the fellowship would try to look out for each other but they also have a straight set of priorities and on top of that is not the tenth member of the fellowship. On top is only Frodo because he carries the ring. If others die then it just was that way. So if there must be a tenth member of the fellowship make sure they are able to protect themselves because there is no reason why everyone would risk their life just to save a useless puppet. They would just let them die and be glad to be finally rid of this burden.

f) All powerful character which does absolute nothing. This is another version of how those stories play out. Instead of a useless puppet which does nothing you have a useless puppet with god powers which does nothing. Again I have nothing against fighting, powerful characters if they do something and if they have impact on what is happening. I hate those powerful characters which do nothing and just watch as Gandalf dies or let Frodo get injured. I also dislike characters which are powerful and fight but have no impact on the story it feels like they are fighting against illusions. If you have a character and she/he is powerful and fights then she/he has an impact and changes things. If you want everything to play out like in the original then don't add a character and just let it happen like in the original. Just saying.

g) Learning how to fight better than elves within a week or even one training session. That's as ridiculous as the first point. I can hardly find words. Why are elves that much better in fighting than others? Easy, because they train their ass of over thousands of years and already have much of raid and battle experience. That doesn't mean that they can't get defeated or overlook something. They are just well trained and precise not invincible. So no one can learn how to fight like them within one training session. Have you ever tried to use a bow? or to lift a sword? Do you know how much strength you need to just fire one arrow? you need to train your condition on those special muscles for months to even have a chance to fire more then two arrows in a row or to swing a sword around over a longer period of time.

h) Race switching. That is a concept which I hate in all fanfictions not just in tenth walker stories. You just change into an elf, WHY? There is no reason that any power would just run around and randomly switch humans to elves or Hobbits or something like that. You can invent an oc which is an elf or a Hobbit but why would someone simply change into another race? And NO the Valar wouldn't do such a thing. Never. You know why? Because they didn't even help Luthien and Beren! Ok they got both a life as humans somewhere else after dying but BUT BUT and the biggest BUT ever Luthien was their kin. Luthien was half Maiar half elf and she fell in love with a human. The Valar didn't even help one of their own kin with granting Beren immortality so why WHY would they randomly change anyone into anything? Especially as I already have discussed that they follow a non intervention policy.

I'm not saying that there can't be good tenth walker stories but you will lose me as reader if you include some of these points without giving good explanations. If you find a creative/funny/exciting way to explain the things, then it could be even a story that I really enjoy. If not I will be bored because I have read it too often. While writing this I thought a long time about what makes stories really good and interesting for me? I always end up in front of the same points:

a) Characters which have a good developed personality. I don't really care if they are original characters or characters from the books, what really hooks me is if they have depth and some ideas. I personally prefer acting, plotting characters but that is personal taste. I think what makes the difference for me is the point if a character shows me something that I haven't known yet or seen that way. You know if there are new angles to the story, new struggles or even some snarky ironic comments on what is actually happening. If the story gains more depth through this character.

b) Balance between expected and unexpected things. I don't care if a story follows some very recognizable traits of a special genre as long as it contains enough ideas and additions which haven't been used in those stories before. Give me something I haven't read yet a million of times. Sorry that I take the tenth walker stories again as example there: What happens in the book with the fellowship is what is to be expected if you only give me that even if you have added another character than its boring. Adding variations, twists, struggles which start to show different scenes, nuances and even characters on the other hand could be really, really exciting.

c) Playing around with how to present the story. This point is basically about how a story looks like. What point of view do I have in the story. Like how would it be if the journey of the fellowship would be told from the ring's point of view? What does he think about Hobbits, Rangers and wizards. In one of the stories I read at the moment, I have found something that I think was an awesomely well thought of creative choice. The story I'm talking about is called "A shot in the Dark" written by Silver pup. The content is basically about Bilbo Baggins in his last days (he is old and has basically lived out his days) and then he suddenly wakes up and is young again. The change history angle (I may have a particular love for those kind of stories lol). He has to live through his adventure with the dwarves again and tries to change what happens. At first I was very sceptic about the story for many reasons. First, I expected it to be like a tenth walker story where Bilbo just drags along and only tries to change things but nothing happens. Second, it starts out with following the movie version and I'm always a bit sceptic about such stories. Third, I don't have anything against gay relationships but I don't read about them normally especially if the characters in the original story aren't gay. Why did I continue reading it then? Because its awesome. Its so well written that you can't stop reading. I love Bilbo's point of view, I love the pacing and how things change subtle without feeling forced. Why did I put this example here: Because the author also uses a very nice way of showing what the characters think about Bilbo Baggins. At the beginning of the chapters you find a few lines which show you the thoughts of one member of the company. Like a inner monologue or reflection upon the situation. That part also gives you a background story about the particular dwarf (former job, family, life) it's really fitting, creative and nicely written.

Thank you to all for reading this, I hope you had some fun. I had a lot of fun writing this and I was really surprised how many different things and tools I came across. Especially as I actually started to bring them all together. I haven't done so before, it was always much more like sometimes talking about that part or another part but never trying to put it all into one text. It really showed me how much you could think about, work with and try out while crafting and shaping a text. Hopefully you will have as much fun with trying to play around with all the options you have as I will. Especially in the end when the time comes to melt it down into a story.

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Again I welcome additions and new ideas.

To kripee: Thank you :) I'm glad that you liked it. Yes the difference between a puppet and a character was one of the parts that I held close to heart, I'm happy that you agree on that. I also don't think that beauty or power makes a character a Mary Sue, for me its the lack of personality that is the problem.

Note: I'm not saying that I can pull of everything that I have written down in this guide/rant, I'm just saying that it is my goal to one day include those points. Until then I'm trying to get better.


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